As such a prior apparatus, a mold floating type press as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 is known. In such a press, when a die tooling set or mold is exchanged, a transfer truck 31 for mold exchange is stopped at the front of a press 32. An upper and a lower plunger 39 and 40 are brought into contact with each other at the center of the mold by actuating of a lower plunger lifting cylinder 33 and a pressure piston 34. Clamps 36 and 37 are loosened, and then, a mold is transferred to the truck 31 by extending a mold pull-out cylinder 38. After the truck 31 is moved, another truck 31a carrying a new mold is stopped at the front of the press 32, and the new mold is mounted to the press in a reverse routine to the mold removal.
The above-mentioned apparatus is sufficiently effective, for example, for a mold exchange due to a wear of a liner portion of the die tooling. However, a requirement for exchanging a mold when a material exchange occurs has recently been proposed because a material mixture for brick can be changed to a small quantity of a multi-type material.
In the prior art press, when a material mixture is changed, the residual material must be completely removed from a table of charger 41, a mixture charging box 42 and a hopper 43. Also a new raw material must be poured into the hopper 43 after cleaning of each respective portion, and an additional cleaning of an upper portion of a mold holder 35 must be carried out.
A method for moving two hoppers 43, 43a over the charger 41 is also considered in the prior art as shown in FIG. 4. However, since the charger 41 must be operated vertically, a complicated construction will result. Also a material hopper 43 must be moved vertically so that an adjustment operation thereof will be rather difficult. For these reasons, the method and apparatus as shown in FIG. 4 will increase manufacturing cost.